Community-acquired syndromes causing morbidity and mortality in Australia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33321/cdi.2017.41.7Keywords:
infectious diseases, incidence, public, AustraliaAbstract
Introduction: The clinical and economic burden of infectious diseases is a substantial public health problem. The determination of the relative contributions of these diseases to the overall healthcare burden can inform priority setting, planning, and decision-making in healthcare and establish a baseline for future comparisons. Few recent studies have presented definitive data on the incidence of infectious diseases requiring hospitalisation in the Southern Hemisphere. We identified the age-specific number of hospitalisations and severe infections requiring intensive care unit admissions in the Geelong region. This was then extrapolated to calculate incidence data of these selected infectious diseases in Australia.
Methods: This observational study was performed in Geelong, the second largest city in Victoria (population of 194,566 adults ≥ 20 years). University Hospital Geelong is a public hospital with the only emergency department in Geelong during the years 2011 and 2013. Patients were identified using the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision Australian Modification discharge codes and diagnoses were confirmed using clinical, radiological and laboratory criteria.
Results: Between 2011 and 2013, there were 1,506 admissions for community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) (245.3 per 100,000 person years), 1,613 admissions for skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs) (271.2 per 100,000 person years), 479 for pyelonephritis (79.7 per 100,000 person years), 131 for influenza (22.4 per 100,000 person years), and 52 for meningitis (8.9 per 100,000 person years).
Conclusion: SSTI, CAP, and pyelonephritis are common syndromes responsible for admission to hospital in Australia, with an incidence that increases with age. CAP is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the Australian population. Influenza is associated with the greatest percentage of severe infections requiring intensive care unit admission. Commun Dis Intell 2017;41(1):E49–E57.
Downloads
References
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Australian Burden of Disease Study: Impact and Causes of Illness and Death in Australia 2011. Australian Burden of Disease Study series no. 3. BOD 4. Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare; 2016.
Goto M, Ohl ME, Schweizer ML, Perencevich EN. Accuracy of administrative code data for the surveillance of healthcare-associated infections: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Clin infect Dis 2014;58(5):688–696.
Andersen LK, Davis MD. The epidemiology of skin and skin-related diseases: a review of population-based studies performed by using the Rochester Epidemiology Project. Mayo Clin Proc 201388(12):1462–1467.
Griffin MR, Zhu Y, Moore MR, Whitney CG, Grijalva CG. US hospitalizations for pneumonia after a decade of pneumococcal vaccination. N Engl J Med 2013;369(2):155–163.
National Regional Profile: Greater Geelong City Part A (Statistical Subdivision). Available from: http://www.abs.gov.au Accessed on 22 October 2015.
Pasco JA, Nicholson GC, Kotowicz MA. Cohort profile: Geelong osteoporosis study. Int J Epidemiol 2012;41(6):1565–1575.
Davis TM, Bruce DG, Davis WA. Cohort profile: the Fremantle diabetes study. Int J Epidemiol 2013;42(2):412–421.
Wilson J, Hair C, Knight R, Catto-Smith A, Bell S, Kamm M, et al. High incidence of inflammatory bowel disease in Australia: A prospective population‐based Australian incidence study. Inflamm Bowel Dis 2010;16(9):1550–1556.
World Health Organization. International Classification of Diseases: ICD-10 online versions. Available from: http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/icdonlineversions/en/ Accessed on 26 October 2015.
Watkins RR, Lemonovich TL. Diagnosis and management of community-acquired pneumonia in adults. Am Fam Physician 2011;83(11):1299–1306.
Stevens DL, Bisno AL, Chambers HF, Dellinger EP, Goldstein EJ, Gorbach SL, et al. Practice guidelines for the diagnosis and management of skin and soft tissue infections: 2014 update by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Clin Infect Dis 2014 59(2):e10–e52.
Cheng AC, Dwyer DE, Holmes M, Irving LB, Brown SG, Waterer GW, et al. Influenza epidemiology, vaccine coverage and vaccine effectiveness in sentinel Australian hospitals in 2013: the Influenza Complications Alert Network. Commun Dis Intell 2013;38(2):E143–E149.
Rothman KJ, Greenland S, Lash TL, eds. Modern epidemiology. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2008.
Harper SA, Bradley JS, Englund JA, File TM, Gravenstein S, Hayden FG, McGeer AJ, et al. Seasonal influenza in adults and children—diagnosis, treatment, chemoprophylaxis, and institutional outbreak management: clinical practice guidelines of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Clin Infect Dis 2009;48(8):1003–1032.
Lopez AD, Mathers CD, Ezzati M, Jamison DT, Murray CJ. Global and regional burden of disease and risk factors, 2001: systematic analysis of population health data. Lancet 2006; 367(9524):1747–1757.
Marston BJ, Plouffe JF, File TM Jr, Hackamn BA, Salstrom SJ, Lipman HB, et al. Incidence of community-acquired pneumonia requiring hospitalization: results of a population-based active surveillance study in Ohio. Arch Intern Med 1997;157(15):1709–1718.
Dryden MS. Skin and soft tissue infection: microbiology and epidemiology. Int J Antimicrob Agents 2009;34 Suppl 1:S2–S7.
Czaja CA, Scholes D, Hooton TM, Stamm WE. Population-based epidemiologic analysis of acute pyelonephritis. Clin Infect Dis 2007;45(3):273–280.
Brown P, Ki M, Foxman B. Acute pyelonephritis among adults: cost of illness and considerations for the economic evaluation of therapy. Pharmacoeconomics 2005;23(11):1123–1142.
Foxman B, Klemstine KL, Brown PD. Acute pyelonephritis in US hospitals in 1997: hospitalization and in-hospital mortality. Ann Epidemiol 2003;13(2):144–150.
Lee KW, Murrell E. Influenza prevention and treatment strategies in the elderly. Annals of Long Term Care 2006;14(9):20.
Bridges CB, Thompson WW, Meltzer MI, et al. Effectiveness and cost-benefit of influenza vaccination of healthy working adults: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA 2000;284(13):1655–1663.
Reed C, Chaves SS, Kirley PD, Emerson R, Aragon D, Hancock EB, et al. Estimating influenza disease burden from population-based surveillance data in the United States. PloS One 2015;10(3):e0118369.
Lawrence GL, Wang H, Lahra M, Booy R, McIntyre PB. Meningococcal disease epidemiology in Australia 10 years after implementation of a national conjugate meningococcal C immunization programme. Epidemiol Infect 2016144(11):1–10.
Thigpen MC, Whitney CG, Messonnier NE, Zell ER, Lynfield R, Hadler JL, et al. Bacterial meningitis in the United States, 1998–2007. N Engl J Med 2011;364(21):2016–2025.
Chiu C, Dey A, Wang H, Menzies R, Deeks S, Mahajan D, et al. Vaccine preventable diseases in Australia, 2005 to 2007. Commun Dis Intell 2010;34 Suppl:S1–S167.
Menzies RI, Bremner KM, Wang H, Beard FH, McIntyre PB. Long-Term Trends in Invasive Haemophilus influenzae type b disease among Indigenous Australian children following use of PRP-OMP and PRP-T vaccines. Pediatr Infect Dis J 2015;34(6):621–626.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. Census of Population and Housing - Counts of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, 2011. ABS cat. No:2075.0 [Online]. Available from: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/2075.0main+features32011 Accessed on 8 August 2016.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
License
Copyright (c) 2017 Communicable Diseases Intelligence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
